Andros escaped contagion longer
than any of his companions, with one exception. He says that the
prisoners were furnished with buckets and brushes to cleanse the ship,
and vinegar to sprinkle the floors, but that most of them had fallen
into a condition of apathy and despair, and that they seldom exerted
themselves to improve their condition.
"The encouragement to do so was small. The whole ship was equally
affected, and contained pestilence enough to desolate a world; disease
and death were wrought into her very timbers. At the time I left it is
to be supposed a more filthy, contagious, and deadly abode never
existed among a Christianized people.
"The lower hold and the orlop deck were such a terror that no man
would venture down into them. * * * Our water was good could we have
had enough of it: the bread was superlatively bad. I do not recollect
seeing any which was not full of living vermin, but eat it, worms and
all, we must, or starve. * * * A secret, prejudicial to a prisoner,
revealed to the guard, was death. Captain Young of Boston concealed
himself in a large chest belonging to a sailor going to be exchanged,
and was carried on board the cartel, and we considered his escape as
certain, but the secret leaked out, and he was brought back and one
Spicer of Providence being suspected as the traitor the enraged
prisoners were about to cut his throat.
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